


To Haunt or Not To Haunt

by Cancion_de_Rio



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Arguing, Asexual Relationship, Greenhouse, Haunting, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Libraries, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:08:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28396686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cancion_de_Rio/pseuds/Cancion_de_Rio
Summary: Aziraphale and Crowley have a drunken four hundred year argument about whether to haunt a library or a greenhouse.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Kudos: 21





	To Haunt or Not To Haunt

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a prompt from @ineffablefoxy/Twitter [Foxy contributed to the prologue]

Prologue:

Lamenting over a rival’s recent successes with pleasing the evil overlord _down below_ , the demon Crowley sank deeper into a rather plush chair cushion. Clutching a large bottle of well-aged and expensive alcohol between his legs, his face turned dark and sullen as his shoulders sagged under the weight of his eternal pressures. The remarkably comfortable armchair was situated in a shop of rare and first edition books owned by the angel Aziraphale, his only friend in the world, who also happened to be sitting across from him at a desk.

“Perhaps you could do some haunting,” suggested Aziraphale after a few moments of sotted contemplation. “Surely that would earn you a few turns of the head!”

“S’pose I could try,” Crowley mumbled, still glum.

“Of course you could! What would you haunt?” Aziraphale enquired cheerfully, hoping to give his friend more motivation and inspiration.

“A greenhouse.” Crowley’s yellow snake eyes darkened, and the narrow slits of his pupils dilated as if prompted by a memory. Aziraphale shivered at the thought of the plants in Crowley’s own private indoor green room. Oblivious to his friend’s uneasiness, Crowley lifted his eyes up with a tinge of hope in them. “Would you want to go haunting with me?”

The angel straightened his back with a playful smile and glittering eyes. “I say! I’ve always rather fancied haunting a library! Why don’t we haunt a royal library, or an academic library? Probably I should stay away from the church libraries…”

The drunken Crowley, sputtering after an inebriated sip from his bottle upon hearing Aziraphale's suggestion: "A _library_??!" Gesturing wildly around the bookshop, he added, "You _already_ basically haunt a place full of books, angel!”

Aziraphale, aghast as he teetered on the edge of his chair: "I do NOT! _You're_ the one already terrifying those quivering plants you keep! Why does it have to be a greenhouse?!"

With a frown, Crowley stood up, impatient and disgruntled with himself and everything. “You know what? I’m going home to my quivering plants, and I’m _not_ going to get sober!”

“W-well, are we still going to dinner some time?” A worried Aziraphale called after him.

“Maybe,” replied Crowley as he sauntered out the shop’s front door without expounding.

*******

A hundred years later in a Parisian restaurant, after several glasses of expensive wine, a rather cheerfully tipsy Aziraphale turned to Crowley and asked, “Have you thought any more about haunting a library?”

“No, I shcertainly haven’t,” sneered a slurring Crowley.

Slightly insulted, Aziraphale returned his attention to his glass of wine with a few hurt blinks.

“Have you thought about that greenhouse I suggested?” Crowley suddenly added, biting his lower lip.

Aziraphale tutted. “Does anyone even VISIT a greenhouse? What’s the point of haunting a place if it’s empty??”

Crowley’s mouth hung agape. “There’s PLANTS. You haunt them. OBVIOUSHLY.”

Crowley then demonstrated proper plant haunting for Aziraphale by screaming at the singular flower in the vase on their table. “If you don’t curl those lame looking petals into a beautiful rose, I’ll pluck them all off one by one!”

When the flower miraculously twisted its petals into the shape of a rose on the verge of blooming, Crowley whipped his head toward the angel, flashing a wide, dazzling grin. He blinked lazily, his reptilian eyes gleaming as he failed to notice the expression of horror on Aziraphale’s decidedly pale face. The angel made a couple of feeble attempts at smiling back but wasn’t sure whether he should thank the demon for making the otherwise plain flower into a rose or admonish him for terrorizing the harmless thing.

Distracted by an impeccably uniformed waiter who brought the angel a slice of exquisitely decorated and scrumptious-looking cake, Aziraphale inhaled its sweet fragrance and absently remarked to Crowley: “I still believe a library is undoubtedly the best place for a haunting.”

“Oh, shhhuddup and eat your cake,” grumbled Crowley, his grin fading quickly as he sank his chin onto his palm to watch the angel devour his dessert.

Ninety-nine years following the drunken dinner in Paris, Aziraphale and Crowley were rumbling along a cobbled street in a horse-drawn carriage just after a mid-day indulgence of fine alcohol at their favorite London tavern. Crowley, feeling quite warm and fuzzy on account of his bevvied disposition, sank down into his seat with a sigh and gave a drowsy smile to the angel. With a rare display of affection, the demon also gave an approving little tug on Aziraphale’s tartan bowtie. Pleased, the angel lifted his chin just slightly, with a hint of a smile, and smoothed out his waist coat. Feeling a bit tiddly and tender himself, Aziraphale reached out to gently patted the demon’s hand and didn’t even get snarled at for it.

Crowley, with a sleepy blink, seemed to suddenly vaguely remember something and smiled again at the angel as he asked, “Where are we going again?”

“To the library,” answered a sweet and confident Aziraphale.

The smile immediately evaporated off the demon’s face. “What!”

Aziraphale flinched and looked at Crowley with a quizzical expression. “You agreed.”

“I never!” hissed the demon.

“You did!” insisted the angel.

“When?” demanded Crowley.

“In the pub!” cried Aziraphale.

The demon opened his mouth to say something more, but the carriage at that point came to a halt in front of a set of concrete stairs flanked by black iron rails leading up to an entrance of double wooden doors with an arched window and the words THE LONDON LIBRARY inscribed above them. Crowley groaned with his lips pulled back in disgust as he put his nose to the carriage window and Aziraphale clapped in his hands in delight. The carriage driver hopped down from his exterior perch and opened the side door for the pair to depart. Not knowing what else to do, Crowley slithered out, his long, slender legs feeling for solid ground. The next thing he knew, the carriage was trotting away and Aziraphale was standing next to him with an excited energy emanating from his very soul.

“Isn’t it glorious?” the angel marveled to his friend.

“No,” the demon muttered to his companion.

Aziraphale tutted. “Well, if you’ve changed your mind, I suppose you can just go home. I can do the haunting all by myself. I’m perfectly capable.”

“No, I’m already here. What else am I going to do?” Crowley whined with a sneer. “Besides, what do you even _know_ about haunting?”

“I _have_ read ghost stories you know,” retorted the angel as he attempted to begin walking up the steps. “You might recall that I own a book shop!”

Crowley made a rude face and silently mocked Aziraphale’s words as he wobbled his head before convincing his feet to climb the steps. Despite his displeasure, he still put a hand on Aziraphale’s back to support him when the angel drunkenly began to move backwards down the stairs rather than forwards even though his own legs swung out in a wide, intoxicated swagger every time he lifted one to the next step. When the doors clicked closed behind them, Crowley feared that in his inebriated state, he’d agreed to something more than he’d bargained for.

Bored as ever by nearly a year of the library haunting, Crowley approached a table of quiet readers and, with a push from his feet, floated into the air, calmly lying on his back with his hands clasped over his waist as he drifted lazily between the readers. The coat tail of his jacket, however, hung down so low that it trailed along the table, attracting their attention. Shocked and speechless in their inability to believe what they were seeing, most stood up and hurried away. But one reader was so engrossed in his book that he didn’t notice the demon. Baffled, Crowley rolled over on his side in front of the unsuspecting reader and discovered that the book was from the horror genre. Crowley smiled to himself.

The reader felt someone tapping his book and peered over the current page’s edge with a deliberately annoyed expression whereupon he found Crowley grinning at him wickedly. He opened his mouth with an intent to chastise the bizarre man’s interruption, but before he could utter a word, Crowley’s face suddenly morphed into a replication of the monster featured on the book’s cover art, replete with loud snarls and growls. The terrified man yelped, and the book flew out of his hands as he fell backward in his chair.

Aziraphale, in search of Crowley, approached just as the man tumbled back. His jaw dropped at seeing the book splayed haphazardly on the floor. He hurried to pick it up.

“Oh, sir, don’t forget your book!” The angel called out to the man as he stumbled over the chair and rushed toward the library’s main entrance without a single glance back.

The mildly amused Crowley was chuckling to himself as Aziraphale sighed and scowled at him.

“Now he’s forgotten his book!” The angel reprimanded the demon.

Crowley stopped laughing, feeling slightly hurt by his friend’s tone. “W-well, can’t you just miracle it to him if you’re so worried about it?”

Tutting disapprovingly, Aziraphale sighed again. “I suppose.”

Upon the horror of discovering the book in his satchel as he sat on a bench recovering from the whole incident, the man, through an erroneous correlation, believed the book to be possessed and in turn all books as well as the libraries that housed them or shops that sold them to be a danger to the public. He would later go on to develop an organization devoted to the censoring, banning, and even burning of such offending works. Their convincing power would extend well into the future, though it began to wane a bit by the 21st century in most countries.

However, in the man’s haste to rid himself of the presumably “possessed” book, he had accidentally left it on the bench where it was later discovered by a ten-year-old boy who, fascinated by the story, went on to write several complex and intriguing horror novels of his own. These novels, in turn, would inspire yet another young lad to write many of his own complex and sometimes horrifying but also moving stories about good and evil. One particular story captivated the hearts of millions and was later turned into a short television series that spawned a large and loving fandom who, through the miracle of a vast computerized network, connected over social media, frequently finding themselves welcomed and accepted for who they really were and not just who they were expected to be.

But before any of that happened, Crowley and Aziraphale were still absorbed in their haunting of the library. While Crowley was chuffed by all the points he was probably racking up with his boss down below because of the low-grade evil he was performing in just one building, Aziraphale was unwittingly terrifying patrons with unsolicited acts of minor miracles in hopes of receiving a big year-end bonus from _up above_. The reality, however, was that nobody other than the institution’s unfortunate visitors was really paying any attention to what the angel and demon were up to in the library.

Several decades later when the unlikely duo abandoned the library haunting experiment after Crowley frightened a patron who knocked over an oil lamp which nearly set fire to the entire building and almost caused Aziraphale to discorporate from the sheer anxiety, they met one morning in a large garden next to a lovely lake to watch the sun rise as they shared a few bottles of rare wine the angel had found hidden the back room of his book shop. It was a cool, late summer morning with a host of grey storm clouds flocking together on the distant horizon suggesting an afternoon downpour. They sat on a bench filling one another’s glasses and sniggering over stories of their individual futile attempts at miracles or evil over the years.

The bibulous pair had consumed just about all the third bottle when Crowley shifted his lanky body on the bench and put a long arm over the back of it, giving Aziraphale a wicked grin. The angel was in the midst of raising his glass to his lips once more as he caught the expression on his friend’s face and furrowed his brows at the demon. Crowley slid the slits of his eyes behind the bench and then flashed them back at Aziraphale suggestively.

“Do you schee what’s behind us?” Crowley slurred with another grin and another sip.

Aziraphale turned his head and upon one look at the expansive building that he had failed to notice upon arrival, his fingers begin to nervously tap his thigh. “Oh dear.”

“I don’t know why I never thought to visit, or shall I say _haunt_ , the Kew Gardens before,” began Crowley, wagging his finger at the adjacent conservatory as if warning it, “but I’ve heard it’s got some rather wild flora inside that greenhouse.”

“But shit’s a…oops,” the angel’s eyes widened in alarm and he clamped a hand over his mouth when he realized he’d accidentally slurred an obscenity. He hoped no one _up above_ was tuning in to their conversation at that very moment. The demon didn’t help the situation by pointing at Aziraphale while wheezing with laughter. Tutting, the angel tried again. “I _meant_ it’s a ROYAL greenhouse. Is that really a good idea?”

“That makes it an even better idea!” Crowley cried, grabbing his friend by the hand, and hurrying him toward the entrance between two striking statues of white marble lions standing guard.

Since it was still quite early in the day, they found that the greenhouse wasn’t yet open to visitors. When the angel adamantly refused to miracle open the doors, Crowley sighed and issued a small bolt of lightning from his fingertips, effectively dismantling the lock. Despite muttering under his breath about how he never witnessed the act, Aziraphale nevertheless gave Crowley a little bow as the demon held the door for him to enter first.

“Oh, what interesting and enormous water lilies!” Aziraphale exclaimed once inside the enormous conservatory, almost losing his balance as he walked toward the water feature. “Pershappss this will be fun after all!”

The demon, after a round of shouting and threatening, was quite satisfied with terrorizing the already-magnificent plants into towering monstrosities, and he turned round to ask his companion to have a look at what he’d accomplished but instead had to do a double take at the sight on the other side of the conservatory. He marched over to better inspect the damage done by Aziraphale’s divine powers. The angel, who was standing with his hands clasped in front of him, was smiling and feeling quite proud of himself as well. His robust, rosy cheeks and white blonde hair made him rather resemble a grown up cherub.

“Aziraphale, I said _haunt_ the plants, not turn them into…” Crowley’s lips curled back with disgust as he searched for the words, until he finally exclaimed, “rare treasures from Tiffany and Co.!”

The flora on the whole left side of the building had been transformed into gleaming golden vegetation: once green leaves and stems were now shiny gold and their occasional pink, purple, or red flowers were encased like jewels. Furry and pointy spokes of the various tufts and stalks of imported cacti were now zigzagged in golden hues. Even the enormous water lilies in the fountain were also turned into gold, and flecks of golden glitter wafted off them into the air making the entire conservatory sparkle from the sunlight filtering through the windows.

Crowley turned his appalled face to Aziraphale and paused as if awaiting an explanation.

“Oh, are you disappointed with me?” The angel sounded defeated. “I thought they were quite pretty.”

Feeling a twinge of guilt and silently cursing himself for it, the demon groaned as his shoulders sagged. But he wasn’t about to apologize because he refused to ever be accused of being _nice_ for any reason. Yet he equally hated the idea of his friend being upset and, besides, the plants _were_ rather pretty to look at. “Well, I suppose it _is_ suitable for a royal garden.”

“Precisely!” said Aziraphale, his beaming grin returning and rendering the snake-like demon’s sneer into a woeful grimace of a smile.

As years crept by into the modern day, or even slightly into the future, the angel and the demon met once again in Aziraphale’s book shop for an idle late night intoxicating indulgence with a few of the angel’s mysteriously appearing bottles of liquor. Crowley was lounging in his usual spot in the comfy armchair and the angel was once again perched on his desk chair. Their sloshed dispositions elicited fuzzy feelings of nostalgia and they began to reminisce about their centuries-long quibble and haunting tribulations.

“I think you rather enjoyed haunting that library,” the angel chirped.

Crowley smiled drunkenly, his heavy lids hanging over his yellow eyes. “I did get a few good scares didn’t I? Did you ever get a bonus for that?”

Aziraphale frowned with annoyance. “No! I never got so much as a thank-you-very-much from Gabriel or even one of his associates!”

The demon frowned with him. “Well that doesn’t seem proper.”

“I didn’t think so either,” the angel remarked with a smirk.

“Well what about all those golden plants in the greenhouse? Did they at least like that?” Crowley enquired.

Aziraphale didn’t want to discuss the visit from Gabriel or the suggestive questions implying that he’d had anything to do with turning plants into gold in a certain royal conservatoire. He still couldn’t believe they had suggested such an act was tantamount to “ _miracle_ _graffiti_.” He just shook his head at Crowley.

“Pfft!” Crowley hissed. “Imagine if you’d turned that glass anim-amano-animimomene…”

“Amen-a-mini…” the angel tried to help his slurring friend with the word but blinked in surprise at his own inability to pronounce a word as simple as anemone. Then he furrowed his brow. “I don’t think that installation was there at the gardens yet.”

The demon pinched his eyebrows together as well and thought a moment. “You might be right.”

“Well, did you at least score any points from…you know…” Aziraphale pointed his forefinger toward the floor.

Crowley scoffed, thinking about the laughter from a certain pair of demonic rivals who’d known the curious greenhouse phenomenon was his creation. “No.”

“Perhaps haunting a greenhouse or a library wasn’t exactly a commendable effort,” sighed the angel.

The demon took another swig from his bottle and gave his mate one of his mischievous smiles. “But we had rather a lot of fun together, didn’t we?”

The angel blushed. “I dare say we did.”

**Author's Note:**

> The London Library and Kew Gardens are real and historical places but the descriptions might be wonky! 
> 
> Wonder who that young lad writing a certain novel and its subsequent fandom might be, hmmmmm...!


End file.
